@YoMike Gaming and watching videos in full screen can prevent ads from appearing. As you’ll see from the official FAQ/Support page at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360055013431-Why-don-t-I-see-any-Brave-Ads-after-enabling-them-
Ad notifications will not be displayed when full-screen mode is detected to ensure the notifications do not interrupt the users session when watching a movie or gaming (for example).
Also, if you’re using a gaming mouse, some have drivers that can interrupt.
Using a gaming mouse Determined the cause to be a driver issue which also affected the Windows screen saver due to the driver always reporting the mouse being active.
Though on the gaming mouse, had someone make a suggestion that you can see at Ads depend on the number of monitors? - #12 by CharlesKlein
What’s interesting is since you’re only having issues during a part of the day, it seems something like I listed or another option might be putting your PC into something of a “do not disturb” mode. You didn’t specifically mention Focus Assist so not sure if you made sure to disable that entirely either.
And yeah, VPN wouldn’t have been the issue as it would have either prevented entirely or you’d not be getting any BAT if that was it. Sounds like with you making sure to have it set to your same region as you’re in, that wouldn’t be a violation of terms. They just want to make sure you’re not changing anything to see ads outside of your region.